Daniel Meadows

Last year I went to a talk by the photographer Daniel Meadows. One of his early projects from the 1970s took place on a bus, a 1948 double decker - JRR 404 - costing £360. It became his home, his gallery and his darkroom: The ‘Free Photographic Omnibus” (Omnibus is from the Latin meaning - For all the people). He traveled in it for 14 months taking photographs in 22 different towns and cities, photographing 958 people in total. He states that the documentary element of photography holds that we are all unique individuals and cannot be studied as representative types. The Daily Mirror described the project as ‘The Great Ordinary Show’. He repaid his subjects with a copy of their portrait that he’d developed on the bus overnight. He did not take names of the subjects, so when he came to revisit the project some 25 years later, he had to resort to the press in order to try to find his original subjects.

The talk he gave was very interesting and the concept of his project stuck with me. It wasn’t too dissimilar to the Irish Identity project I did last year but I had accompanying text with the photos, whereas though Daniel Meadows didn’t appear to have text alongside the photos, he did record the subjects on tape. The fact that his subjects were ‘passing through’ so to speak is similar to the Open Brief project I am doing at the Tattoo Parlour. My subjects are passing through: not all of them want to participate and some are easier to work with than others. That is human nature though and I will have to find the most effective way of getting the best out of my potential subjects. More recently, Daniel did a project entitled Digital Storytelling where he worked with a group of individuals and helped them, with the aid of a photo album and stories from their past to make a short video of a subject of their choosing, some of which are shown on his website. The site is interesting to browse as it covers a 30+ year period of the working practice of a photographer, highlighting both the history and the changes in the craft. It is definitely worth taking a look.  

The web address is http://www.photobus.co.uk

 

© Daniel Meadows